Beginner's luck

We've been eating curly kale and silverbeet for weeks and now we've had a huge haul of green beans and one of the largest spring onions ever seen. 

To be fair, that is an excessively small apple. 

I picked 1.2kg of green beans and froze them, densely packed into ziplock bags without blanching. The first batch came out again for an Irish stew. They were a touch squeaky but still nice and crunchy. 

Choko

I had been confused by the lack of flowers on my choko vine given how healthy it was looking. 

I'd been expecting big yellow flowers like a pumpkin or courgette and hadn't noticed the subtle pale ones. You can see a cluster of them on the left of this photo. 

And look at that big fat fruit! I'm not sure when they're ripe so I'll leave it on the vine for now.. 

Garden Envy

I visited a subtropical terraced garden with our local garden group last week and was amazed at what would grow under a canopy of pines and ponga. 

  

There was lots of garden art scattered amongst the plants and pots of succulents placed around the house, which gave me lots of ideas for adding interest in our garden. 

I was very taken with this water feature made from glass insulators from a decommissioned pylon. 

I solved yet another plant mystery too. This deep purple flower is on a tibouchina shrub. We have one at the back near our camellia and above our pink carpet rose (another new identification). 

The gardener's friend recommended a New Zealand book on subtropical plants which I've added to my shopping list so that I can identify a few more of our plants and learn about them. 

I'll miss the next trip to a community orchard as we'll be in Australia but I'm sure there'll be plenty of interesting plants there too... 

Witch hazel

Belladonna Lily

I am gradually identifying the plants in my garden. I saw these at the Kumeu Show and realized that we had them too. 

Kumeu Show 3

The indoor exhibits are always my favourite part of the show. I think I'll enter next year - maybe some eggs, greens, preserves and a craft. The photography section is tempting too. And I know we'll have lots of fun with the children's classes in years to come...

Kumeu Show 2

I had to be forcibly steered past the guinea pigs for sale sign... 

Kumeu Show 1

Looking forward to the day when I have more time and can extend our flock... 

Magnolia

Bug Hunt

We found all sorts of creepy-crawly activity around our block last weekend. 

What do you think came out of this hole? It seems to have made a very neat lid. 

And what will hatch from these eggs? 

These are the cicada skins that we found with a huhu bug. 

You can clearly see the slit out of which the adult cicadas climbed. 

Here's the hard shell of the huhu bug. 

And his furry underbelly. 

Undergrowth 3

Undergrowth 2

Undergrowth 1

A busy day in the field

We took a wander around the paddock today and found lots of interesting things including this huge fungus. 

And dozens of shed cicada skins which resulted in a bug hunt - more on that later.   

We picked a few dozen blackberries for a crumble. 

And then mowed the paddock - good bye gorse and brambles and reeds. 

Firewood